CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
290 km from Harnes to Harnes, about 5 h of riding. The stops in between: Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, Stadhuis and back through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin. It crosses from France into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Camus Haut lies on the eastern edge of the mining basin, near Annay, Pont-à-Vendin and Harnes, where the canalised Deûle carries barges north towards Lille. The label refers to one of the many mining sites and cités of the area, and while the exact spot is hard to identify from a distance, the landscape tells you what kind of place it is: brick housing estates, old pit heads, spoil heaps going green, and the wide, flat horizon of the Gohelle.
Read the complete Camus Haut write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Camus Haut is where the day begins. Next is Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Black hills on a flat land. That is the image most people keep of the Nord-Pas de Calais coal basin, a band of former mining country stretching about 120 kilometres from the Belgian border westward towards Béthune, where for nearly three centuries coal was dug from deep underground. The slag heaps, the terrils, rise like pyramids above the towns, and the mining villages, the cités, line the streets in rows of brick houses. In 2012 the basin was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognised as a living cultural landscape, with over three hundred elements protected.
Read the complete Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stadhuis.
Bruges is half an hour north, and the two make a good pairing, but Roeselare deserves to be taken on its own terms: a working town of some fifty-six thousand people, built on textiles, food processing and trade, with a town hall on its market square that anchors the centre. Like most Flemish towns, Roeselare grew around a market and a civic building that announced the burghers' independence from lords and bishops, and the tradition of the town hall as the symbol of local self-government is still very much alive here.
Read the complete Stadhuis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 145 km into the recorded legs you reach Stadhuis. Next is back through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, late in the day. Next is Camus Haut.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Camus Haut write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Camus Haut. That is the ride.
Camus Haut → Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin → Stadhuis is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Stadhuis → back through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin → Camus Haut is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.